Books published by Springer International Publishing AG

The growth and adoption of social media has significantly impacted the writing and publishing landscape, challenging traditional concepts of authorship and prompting a re-evaluation of how authors present themselves in digitally social spaces. This book explores how authors navigate the performance of their authorship in the digital age, focusing on the development of author identity, its relationship to performance, the value of authenticity, and how authors may self-censor based on who they think their audiences are. Drawing on qualitative surveys and interviews, and quantitative data scraping and mining for sentiment analysis, this research explores how authors project their identities within the consumer's cultural landscape. By investigating the performative nature of authorship in digitally social spaces, this study aims to deepen our understanding of the evolving dynamics between authors, their works, and readers in the digital era.

This edited collection investigates topics related to environmental humanities through their inclusion, exploration, or critique in contemporary video games. It focuses on how video games are a site for creating and interacting within environments, with analysis that showcases how environments are shaped within video games as well as serve as a reflection of our real world. This crossroad between the virtual and the real allows us to consider the ways in which the concepts, theories, and issues facing our real-world environment can be understood and studied through video games, particularly via the power of interactive play to teach. This book looks into how video games might empower their players to make real-world change through their immersive environments. Finally, the volume offers a consideration of ecological crises through an exploration of post-apocalyptic narratives in a wide variety of video games. This close textual analysis of video game narratives and play structures allows insight into how and why such stories were crafted and explores the various intersections between these fictional play environments and the conditions of our real world.

This open access book showcases innovative collaborations between the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines to benefit European mobility policy. Each chapter has been researched by a team encompassing both social and technical expertise. The book presents nine policy recommendations aimed at enhancing mobility and logistics.It will interest anyone involved in researching, developing, implementing, or evaluating mobility and logistics policy at local, national, or international levels. It is also valuable for those seeking to expand the use of interdisciplinary research to achieve sustainability goals.Part of a three-volume collection covering climate, energy, and mobility policy.

This book explores the relationship of natural and artificial intelligence in our rapidly evolving world. It does so anchored in an innovative multidisciplinary framework and the premise that society is a composition of multiple dimensions, with individuals (micro), communities (meso), countries (macro) and planet (meta) in the collective sphere, and individuals themselves as multidimensional beings (aspirations, emotions, thoughts, sensations). This perspective is applied to analyze the implications of our transition into a phase where online and offline realms are increasingly intertwined. Special attention is given to the influence of all pervasive technology on our perception of the self and society. The central message is that we must learn to harness Agency amid AI, which entails double literacy ¿ of artificial and natural intelligence.

This book provides fundamental principles, design procedures, and design tools for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with three sections focusing on vehicle design, autopilot design, and ground system design. The design of manned aircraft and the design of UAVs have some similarities and some differences. They include the design process, constraints (e.g., g-load, pressurization), and UAV main components (autopilot, ground station, communications system, sensors, and payload). A UAV designer must be aware of the latest UAV developments; current technologies; know lessons learned from past failures; and they should appreciate the breadth of UAV design options.The contribution of unmanned aircraft continues to expand every day and over 67 countries are developing and employing UAVs for both military and civil/scientific purposes. A UAV system is much more than a reusable air vehicle or vehicles. UAVs are air vehicles, they fly like airplanes and operate in an airplane environment. They are designed like air vehicles; they have to meet critical air vehicle requirements. A designer needs to know how to integrate complex, multi-disciplinary systems, and to understand the environment, the requirements and the design challenges and this book is an excellent overview of the fundamentals from an engineering perspective.This book is meant to meet the needs of newcomers into the world of UAVs. The materials are intended to provide enough information in each area and illustrate how they all play together to support the design of a complete UAV. Therefore, this book can be used both as a reference for engineers entering the field or as a supplementary text for a UAV design course to provide system-level context for each specialized topic.The second edition is extensively revised. Some of the new terminologies, concepts, and specific unmanned aircraft systems are introduced. The revisions make the book clearer and easier to understand, and will add number of new subjects in areas that have become more prominent in the unmanned aviation world.

Corporate debt in emerging markets (EMs) has reached historical levels in the post-Covid-19 world. This challenges international lenders (e.g., commercial banks, development finance institutions, and impact investors) and EM economies in their pursuit of economic development. This book builds on the authors¿ first volume by focusing on the role of institutions in the economy, credit markets, and ultimately debt restructuring. The authors identify, contextualize, and evaluate the major challenges confronting restructuring professionals in EMs, offering ¿ten observations¿ on the major differences for the practitioner in the restructuring environment of EMs versus that of advanced economies. The authors present four detailed EM case studies (following these with counterfactuals) reflecting these ten observations. The authors also explore the main elements of an effective EM insolvency framework as relevant to the restructurer¿s choice whether to pursue a formal versus an informal solution. Written for restructuring professionals by restructuring professionals, this book explores the factors which drive success¿or failure¿in EM debt restructuring.

This book provides a collection of chapters that critically explore the making and development of Africäs independence constitutions through the different phases in their full generality. Since independence, various constitutions from African countries have undergone a succession of changes, triggered by either the domestic or international environment or both. These processes constitute autonomous epochal ¿waves¿ or ¿phases¿ of constitution-making which need to be unpacked, historicised and explored in a systematic manner. This work, intended as a distinctive object of positive analysis, historicizes the independence constitutions of selected African states on either a country-specific or a comparative basis. A historical approach to the continental study of constitutions is rare, meaning the continental coverage of the book is justified by Africäs rich diversity reflected in its multiple monarchical and colonial backgrounds. The book is of interest to academics interested in having a panoramic view of Africa's constitutional development from a historical perspective.

This book offers a holistic picture of rogue waves in integrable systems. Rogue waves are a rare but extreme phenomenon that occur most famously in water, but also in other diverse contexts such as plasmas, optical fibers and Bose-Einstein condensates where, despite the seemingly disparate settings, a common theoretical basis exists. This book presents the physical derivations of the underlying integrable nonlinear partial differential equations, derives the explicit and compact rogue wave solutions in these integrable systems, and analyzes rogue wave patterns that arise in these solutions, for many integrable systems and in multiple physical contexts. Striking a balance between theory and experiment, the book also surveys recent experimental insights into rogue waves in water, optical fibers, plasma, and Bose-Einstein condensates. In taking integrable nonlinear wave systems as a starting point, this book will be of interest to a broad cross section of researchers and graduate students in physics and applied mathematics who encounter nonlinear waves.

This graduate textbook on the statistical approach to data science describes the basic ideas, scientific principles and common techniques for the extraction of mathematical models from observed data. Aimed at young scientists, and motivated by their scientific prospects, it provides first principle derivations of various algorithms and procedures, thereby supplying a solid background for their future specialization to diverse fields and applications.The beginning of the book presents the basics of statistical science, with an exposition on linear models. This is followed by an analysis of some numerical aspects and various regularization techniques, including LASSO, which are particularly important for large scale problems. Decision problems are studied both from the classical hypothesis testing perspective and, particularly, from a modern support-vector perspective, in the linear and non-linear context alike. Underlying the book is the Bayesian approach and the Bayesian interpretation of various algorithms and procedures. This is the key to principal components analysis and canonical correlation analysis, which are explained in detail. Following a chapter on nonlinear inference, including material on neural networks, the book concludes with a discussion on time series analysis and estimating their dynamic models.Featuring examples and exercises partially motivated by engineering applications, this book is intended for graduate students in applied mathematics and engineering with a general background in probability and linear algebra.

This book offers unprecedented knowledge about how social work practice education has been restructured under the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and how the adaptations and innovations generated during this time have become a supplementary tool of current social work education worldwide. Based on the European research project "SWooPEd ¿ Social Work Practice Education in Times of Pandemics, and Beyond. Continuities, Changes and Innovations in Europe", this contributed volume provides a unique international perspective from different European countries that are accomplished through insights from authors in other continents.The book addresses topics through a 'glocal' approach, using a comparative perspective and a multi-method design. It adopts the IASSW-IFSW "Global Standards for Social Work Education and Training", as well as considers the heterogeneity of national social work education systems in Europe, North America, Africa, and the Asia and Pacific region. The volume's contents are organized in three sections: In Part I, the authors compare the structures and designs of social work practice education programs and the reactions of the schools of social work to the COVID-19-related restrictive measures on a European level. In Part II, the authors provide in-depth analyses on how the pandemic experimentations have been re-adapted and used in some European countries and which innovations and findings were identified that could be integrated now and in the context of other crises. In Part III, the authors contextualize these experiences and display the paths and analyses from schools in non-European countries, as well as finally identify the crucial current challenges and opportunities for social work practice education at a global level.Social Work Practice Education Beyond the Pandemic is a key reference for the global community of social work education including academics, educators, field instructors, practitioners, and students. It provides an inspiring source for all the innovators in the field of higher education in social work and highlights how social work practice education can be designed in a more resilient and sustainable way that directs social work practice education into the future.

This book assesses to what extent marketisation in Higher Education can be attributed to Neoliberalism. Higher education sectors in many countries have increasingly relied on market mechanisms in their management and functioning, particularly in their provision of education. Many assume that Neoliberalism, with its pursuit of free markets and competition, is the key driver. Neoliberalism continues to be a popular concept to describe the social, political, and economic worlds around us, but there is little consensus on how it should be defined or understood. The book argues that there is a clear scope for the use of Neoliberalism to describe the direction HE is shifting towards, but it is rather inadequate on its own and not applicable in all areas.

This book brings together a diverse range of findings on current and emerging business concerns when the authors were developing a series of 12 working Analytic Research Consortium (ARC) White Papers. It presents several, differently configured scenarios, drawing on cyber as an example; the use and further optimization of estimative/probabilistic language; communicating analytical insights and other findings concerning ¿(un)certainty¿ to decision-maker end-users; and mitigating risk. It also evaluates in detail today¿s rapidly evolving Gen-AI systems and technologies, e.g. those underlying OpenAI¿s ChatGPT and Google¿s Bard/Gemini. This includes their respective value concerning scenario development and other business-relevant methods, tools and techniques, e.g. ¿Red Teaming¿. The topics discussed are assessed using the multi-methodologies of, firstly, ¿Intelligence Engineering¿ (IE) and, secondly, ¿Strategic Options Analysis¿ (SOA). The latter half of the book introduces an alternative scenario planning process, including use of new computer-software and AI tools. In addition to Gen-AI, we identify that the emerging discipline of Causal AI may work better for foresight and scenario activities.The book is a valuable read for a diverse readership from the public and private sectors, spanning government, the military, law enforcement, education, industry, commerce, retail, and enterprises of all sizes. Also, students at business schools and high-level decision-makers, including politicians, military commanders, and C-Suite leaders in various fields, will benefit from it.

Despite the advances in precision medicine and the progressive tailoring of multimodal therapies, surgery still remains the mainstay treatment in the majority of pediatric solid tumors and plays a key role in the multidisciplinary evaluation and management of pediatric oncology patients. The surgeons will face a variety of challenging situations in many aspects of the treatment of a child with cancer. Whether in the emergency department, evaluating a new patient or in the operating room, a clear and concise decision-making plan needs to be developed to assure optimal care and survival.The Survival Handbook in Pediatric Surgical Oncology is to provide an up-to-dated, portable, easy to read and schematic overview of the main topics of the surgeon's role in pediatric oncology, delivering a quick reference guide especially designed for pediatric surgery residents, fellows and young practitioners.The wide coverage of general aspects of the field, like epidemiology, basic oncology, anesthesia and imaging, will be completed with a detailed but brief analysis of most prevalent solid tumors. Other important topics will also be treated, like oncological emergencies and fertility considerations. The chapters will be in charge of key opinion leaders in every topic, looking to deliver only the crucial information, in order to help in the bedside decision making plan.This handbook will be an important partner for many pediatric surgeons around the world, because in this kind of disease it¿s crucial to act quickly and correctly in order to assure the right diagnosis and start treatment as soon as possible.

This book builds on the perspective that, for Indigenous peoples, relations to the land are familial, intimate, intergenerational, spiritual, instructive, and life nourishing, and it is these relations that Western societies sought to destroy as part of their colonial projects of territorial conquest and exploitation of resources. Positioning storytelling as a research methodology and a model of decolonial practice, this edited collection seeks to explore the following key questions: how does Indigenous storytelling contribute to understanding Indigenous identity and the crucial role of the land in Indigenous ways of life? How can Indigenous storytelling subvert colonial narratives of the land? How can Indigenous storytelling contribute to addressing colonial exploitations of the land and its resources? Can Indigenous storytelling become a rich mode for the investigation of current climate crises? And, finally, how does storytelling assist Indigenous peoples in restoring their intimate relations to the land and its natural gifts? Through critical analysis of a unique range of Indigenous storytelling practices, including fiction, performative art, new media platforms, archaeological findings and personal live-experienced stories, this collection aims to examine the interplay between colonialism and current environmental challenges, and to expose the impacts ¿ past, present, and future ¿ of Western worldviews on Indigenous connections to the land, whilst simultaneously bringing to the fore Indigenous ethos of care and land custodianship.

This book focuses on global mobility and the worldwide articulation of family life, understood as dimensions of social change that come off from the private sphere of individuals and reverberate to the point of transforming the composition of national populations. Delving into the interrelation of migration and life courses, the volume investigates how individual mobility paths are intertwined with family matters and the way population movements are embedded in a myriad of intimate and household affairs. The inquiry is based on qualitative data and specifically focused on the migratory flow between Morocco and Italy through an exploration that encompasses a range of interrelated issues such as: transnational marriages, intimacy, love, daily domestic life, the formation of second generations and citizenship. Providing an exhaustive analysis of such phenomena, the book portrays cultural diversity in a nuanced manner and, in so doing, contributes to de-politicize widely stigmatized traits of migrant families.

The China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative by China. This project has attracted much of the focus and attention owing to its geostrategic significance where it connects China with Pakistan through the strategic port of Gwader and through a network of road and rail connection, henceforth improving Chinäs and Pakistan¿s outreach in the Asian, African and European markets.This study takes a new direction and examines the development of CPEC projects across Pakistan by choosing six projects in both rural and urban areas and their impact on the daily lives of people as reflected in three crucial Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encapsulated by the United Nations¿good health and wellbeing, inclusive and equitable quality education, and decent work and economic growth (SDGs 3, 4, and 8, respectively). This is a new approach used to study the impact of the CPEC beyond geopolitics and for the common people in Pakistan who are directly or indirectly affected by various CPEC projects. This is under studied aspect of the literature on CPEC and this monograph adequately fills the gap in literature.The study takes a deep dive into 6 CPEC projects i.e., Sahiwal Coal Power Plant, Orange Line Metro Train, Lahore, Rasahkai Special Economic Zone, Peshawar-D.I.Khan Motorway, Kohala Hydro Power Project and Neelum-Jehlum Power project to understand how these projects have affected the lives of common people through their impact on SDGs 3,4 and 8. For the first time people¿s centric approach has been adopted to evaluate the development impacts of the CPEC.

This textbook provides an introduction to the mathematical methods used to analyse deterministic models in life sciences, including population dynamics, epidemiology and ecology. The book covers both discrete and continuous models.The presentation emphasises the solvability of the equations appearing in the mathematical modelling of natural phenomena and, in the absence of solutions, the analysis of their relevant properties. Of particular interest are methods that allow for determining the long-term behaviour of solutions. Thus, the book covers a range of techniques, from the classical Lyapunov theorems and positivity methods based on the Perron-Frobenius theorem, to the more modern monotone dynamical system approach. The book offers a comprehensive presentation of the Lyapunov theory, including the inverse Lyapunov theorems with applications to perturbed equations and Vidyasagar theorem. Furthermore, it provides a coherent presentation of the foundations of the theory of monotone dynamical systems with its applications to epidemiological models. Another feature of the book is the derivation of the McKendrick-von Foerster equation from the discrete Leslie model and the analysis of the long-term behaviour of its solutions.Designed for upper undergraduate courses and beyond, this textbook is written for students and researchers looking to master the mathematics of the tools commonly used to analyse life science models. It therefore goes somewhat deeper into mathematics than typical books at this level but should be accessible to anyone with a good command of calculus with elements of real and complex analysis and linear algebra; the necessary concepts are collected in the appendices.

Now in its sixth edition, this textbook presents the tools and concepts used in multivariate data analysis in a style accessible for non-mathematicians and practitioners. Each chapter features hands-on exercises that showcase applications across various fields of multivariate data analysis. These exercises utilize high-dimensional to ultra-high-dimensional data, reflecting real-world challenges in big data analysis.For this new edition, the book has been updated and revised and now includes new chapters on modern machine learning techniques for dimension reduction and data visualization, namely locally linear embedding, t-distributed stochastic neighborhood embedding, and uniform manifold approximation and projection, which overcome the shortcomings of traditional visualization and dimension reduction techniques.Solutions to the book's exercises are supplemented by R and MATLAB or SAS computer code and are available online on the Quantlet and Quantinar platforms. Practical exercises from this book and their solutions can also be found in the accompanying Springer book by W.K. Härdle and Z. Hlávka: Multivariate Statistics - Exercises and Solutions.

This book provides expert advice on the practical implementation of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and systematically analyses its various provisions.

This extensively updated edition provides a comprehensive review of intensive care for neurologically injured patients from the emergency room and ICU through the operating room and post-surgical period in two comprehensive volumes. The Editors of this second volume present a comprehensive textbook that incorporates best practice/evidence-based medicine and performance improvement, while it champions the three characteristics needed in our neuröICUs: patient and family centered high-quality care, education, and discovery. This volume concentrates on perioperative management, monitoring and pharmacotherapy, examining the neurological problems most frequently seen in intensive care, and describes the various types of neurosurgery and critical features of the management of patients. General issues are discussed across the textbook, such as cardiac care, fluids and electrolytes, nutrition, and monitoring as well as more specific conditions and complications including elevated intracranial pressure, seizures, and altered mental states.Listening to an injured brain is not easy. It takes knowledge, dedication, and understanding of the critically ill patient and their family. Textbook of Neurointensive Care Volume 2: Perioperative Management, Monitoring, Pharmacotherapy provides the reader with a detailed resource for studying this most complex area of medicine. It is thus essential reading for all trainees and professionals in critical care, neurosurgery, anesthesia and neurology.

This extensively updated edition provides a comprehensive review of intensive care for neurologically injured patients from the emergency room and ICU through the operating room and post-surgical period in two comprehensive volumes. The Editors of this first volume present a comprehensive textbook that incorporates best practice/evidence-based medicine and performance improvement, while it champions the three characteristics needed in our neuröICUs: patient and family centered high-quality care, education, and discovery. This volume concentrates on neuroanatomy, diagnostic assessment and disease management, examining the neurological problems most frequently seen in intensive care, and describes the various types of neurosurgery and critical features of the management of patients. General issues are discussed across the textbook, such as cardiac care, fluids and electrolytes, nutrition, and monitoring as well as more specific conditions and complications including elevated intracranial pressure, seizures, and altered mental states.Listening to an injured brain is not easy. It takes knowledge, dedication, and understanding of the critically ill patient and their family. Textbook of Neurointensive Care Volume 1: Neuroanatomy, Diagnostic Assessment, Disease Management provides the reader with a detailed resource for studying this most complex area of medicine. It is thus essential reading for all trainees and professionals in critical care, neurosurgery, anesthesia and neurology.

This handbook brings together contributions from the main experts in the field of multilingualism and language varieties (including dialects, accents, sociolects, and idiolects of specific speech communities) as expressed in fictional dialogue on-screen in films, and television series. The chapters included in the volume cover both the representation of these varieties and multilingual situations on screen as well as their translation into a range of languages. The handbook will thus be an essential resource for scholars and students in diverse fields including translation studies, audiovisual translation, linguistics, dialectology, film and television studies.

This unique book addresses the need for the scholarly works that include the voices of clinicians, community stakeholders, and leaders of faith-based institutions in various phases of developing, implementing, and evaluating programs that address health inequities and health disparities among marginalized, middle and low resource communities. Another feature of this book is the contributions to the evidence on SDOH from not only academic researchers but clinicians, community partners, and leaders of faith-based institutions. The overall purpose of this book is really to highlight global community-based programs that have been implemented in marginalized, middle and low resource global communities. The communities represented are rural, urban-inner city, located in Southern, Northeastern, and Western U. S. as well as global communities from Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Botswana, the Grenadines, Nigeria, and Peru. For ease of reading, the editors have further classified these SDOH conditions illustrated in chapters organized according to a 4 pillar SDOH framework of social, cultural, physical environment, social environment, and policy conditions.This book contributes to a diverse perspective of the possibilities of incorporating SDOH into communities and faith-based institutions. The long-range objectives are to inform, inspire, and encourage the novice and senior faculty, clinician, community stakeholder, and faith-based institutional leader to develop, implement, and evaluate SDOH on health and health disparities among the communities they serve.The intended audience of this book is faculty of nursing, public health, and medicine in academic and practice settings; professional leaders of nursing, public health, and medicine; community stakeholders, and leaders of faith-based institutions engaged in partnerships with health care providers. This text might also be useful to faculty of foreign studies, and behavioral sciences.

This Open Access edited volume addresses the important role of education in society through the lens of theoretical concepts developed by Norbert Elias. This book sets out to challenge dominant perspectives within the sociology of education by reorientating traditional debates about socialisation, childhood, early years education, care, schooling and the curriculum, focusing on the relational learning processes that lie at the heart of pedagogic relationships between parents, teachers, children and peers. It also offers an innovative perspective on some of the key debates in childhood studies, bringing together and relating the different aspects of childhood through a generational lens. Authors from different countries follow young children as they grow up and learn how to become civilized in institutions in contemporary society, discussing how from one generation to the next they learn from adults and their peers an enormous social fund of knowledge about their world.

This book focuses on the more than 8,000 local elections administrators in counties, municipalities, and townships who largely manage the key administrative processes of elections, work with campaigns and candidates, design voting materials and choose voting equipment, staff early, and Election Day polling locations, and communicate with and educate voters. They are the frontline of democracy, and this is the first book that explores who becomes an election administrator; their opinions about election reform and election integrity; how LEOs responded to the unique challenges of the 2020 election which included misinformation and even death threats; and how to move forward to ensure a sustainable, diverse, and sustainable community.

This textbook introduces topological defects and solitons at a level suitable for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in physics and materials science. It avoids the formal mathematics of topology, and instead concentrates on the physical properties of these topological structures.The first half of the book concentrates on fundamental principles of defects and solitons, and illustrates these principles with a single example¿the xy model for 2D magnetic order. It begins by defining the concept of a winding number, and uses this concept to describe the topology of defects (vortices or disclinations) and solitons (domain walls), carefully identifying the similarities and differences between these two types of topological structures. It then goes on to discuss physical properties of defects and solitons, including free energy, dynamics, statistical mechanics, and coupling with curvature. It shows how these concepts emerge from a theory with variable magnitude of order, and hence how topology can be viewed as an approximation to physics.The second half goes on to explore a wider range of topological defects and solitons. First, it considers more complex types of order¿2D nematic liquid crystals, 3D magnetic or liquid-crystal order, 2D or 3D crystalline solids¿and shows how each type of order leads to specific topological structures. Next, it discusses defects and solitons that are characterized by 2D or 3D measuring surfaces, not just 1D loops, including hedgehogs, skyrmions, and hopfions. These structures are more complex, but they can still be understood using the same fundamental principles. A final chapter describes the formation of phases with regular arrays of defects or solitons.

This book introduces readers to key concepts in group theory through engaging puzzles. The early sections of the book show how the rules of group theory emerge naturally from solving puzzles. Different classes of groups, such as cyclic, dihedral and permutation groups are introduced, accompanied by numerous puzzles to facilitate the understanding of the underlying group structures. Later chapters explain how further group theory principles can be applied to puzzle-solving.This book is intended as a highly motivating supplementary text for an undergraduate abstract algebra course. It is also ideal for anyone seeking a fun, hands-on approach to learning group theory. Additionally, the book's many puzzles will be enjoyable for readers already familiar with group theory.